Home
by Larkspur Quince
Summary: Painful letters pass between Harry and Draco, the two sides to a broken love.
1. Chapter 1

_Don't leave me. Please come home._

Harry holds the parchment in his rough and beaten hands. He's read the six words countless times, wrought in Draco's beautiful, elegant script. The letter has been folded and refolded enough times that it no longer looks crisp, but as weathered as Harry does. He keeps the message folded in the inner pocket of his robes, close to his body. Apart from Draco, he is the only one who knows it has ever been written. They are also the only two who know he has never replied to the letter. He hasn't even spoken to Draco since before this message was made. And while there is no date marked anywhere on the parchment, Harry knows it was sent on the thirteenth of January, two years past.

But what only Harry knows is what it feels like to receive such a letter. Worse yet, he knows how it feels to betray that exact promise he made, and then to have to ignore Draco. He knows, too, even though he committed his crime for all the right reasons, he is no less guilty.

He picks up an old quill and some tattered parchment. For two years he hasn't spoken to nor heard from Draco, but everything is over now. It feels like…time. It was better that way, when he was hidden, where he could prevent others from getting hurt. It _was_ for all the right reasons, wasn't it?

He wasn't able to return to his previous life until six months ago, when everything ended. He'd dealt with everything after, and he had been free. But when the press had asked him, "Will you go home now?", he had imagined the words coming from Draco's mouth and he hadn't been able to stomach it. Harry had returned to the place he'd hidden in, and he'd stayed there.

For all the people Harry saved by being out of the picture, his absence inflicted irrevocably deep wounds on the one closest to him.

He didn't want to leave Draco. That was never his intention, not really, but it had to be done. And every day images of the beautiful youth with the white-blond hair, slender face with skin like moonlit cream swim mercilessly before him. He remembers the ever-amused expression in Draco's face, reflected in eyes the most curious chrome-gray colored eyes Harry has ever seen. He misses those eyes. He misses the quick responses, the dark twinkle in his eye, the sensuous mouth; he misses the feel of Draco enfolded in his arms, the way he bites his bottom lip when he is aroused. And more than anything, he misses the way he felt when they walked together in public, when Draco had finally let him hold his hand. Since then, "home" has been anywhere Draco was.

It is this feeling he remembers as he begins to scrawl on the parchment.

A little after two AM in the center of London, in an expansive apartment with white paint and beautiful dark hardwood floors, a young man with black hair and blue eyes rolls over in a huge downy bed. He sits up at the edge and pulls a pair of tight jeans up a pair of slender legs and hops up once his ass is mostly covered.

Draco watches him as he throws on a black t-shirt and buttons his jeans. The blonde boy is naked, barely covered with a white down comforter, sweat gleaming from his marbled frame. His breathing is calm now and his hair deliciously rumpled, but he says nothing as his lover gathers his effects. This is routine for Draco: men come and then leave once the deed is done. Nobody ever stays, not since…nobody stays. But he doesn't care. Once the room stinks of sex and there's the impression of a man—any man—next to him, he goes to sleep. He goes to work whenever, gets done what he needs to get done, and goes out. Someone comes home with him; they fuck, he leaves, and the process starts itself over again, the same way it's been for almost two years. By now, Draco has probably bedded every fuckable man in this half of Europe at least once—maybe even a few from the other hemisphere have slipped in.

Once Draco hears his front door close, he rolls over and buries his head in the pillow. He doesn't bother to get up and lock the door, even though his apartment is full of expensive and beautiful things. Forty minutes later, he's out, and his sleep is a dreamless one.

He heads to work sometime around one o'clock the next afternoon, smartly dressed and groomed. On his way, he stops downstairs to check the post. A letter from his mother, a cell phone bill, a few invitations, a credit card statement—

He loses his breath.

There, in his hand between other, less significant mail, is a frayed-looking piece of parchment, addressed to him in handwriting he knows too well. He recognizes the little slanted _i_s, the not-quite-closed _a_s, the completely graceless and blunt consonants. He loses track of time momentarily, as flashes come to him from a life he's tried to forget: a scar, a pair of blinding emerald eyes, a gruff laugh, a pair of hands with intertwined fingers.

And he realizes, coming out of his reverie, he doesn't have time for this.

"Katie," he says, addressing the plump older woman who is usually in charge of admitting guests, "can you take this up to my apartment? I've got to run. I'm really late for work." The small woman bumbles forward happily, pleased to be of help to the handsome young man. She accepts the mail and goes on her way, humming cheerfully.

Work finds Draco doing his damnedest to put that god-awful letter out of his mind. It takes no precedence over anything in his day, he knows, but he can barely get anything done. Even his boss notices he is a little jumpy and not quite his smooth, suave self. It takes him so long to get his work done that it is almost eleven by the time he walks his way back to his apartment. He tries to move slowly, coolly, detachedly. But the furious pounding of his heart propels him forward, and it is not ten minutes before he's in the front door, rounding the stairs, and unlocking the door to his apartment.

He is about to pour himself a glass of very fancy wine, and then thinks better of it, moving straight to the strong stuff in a big tumbler, which he downs all too quickly before pouring himself a second.

Katie has left his mail on the kitchen counter, and he plucks the weathered letter from the pile and sits on a beautiful smoky-blue sofa upholstered in Italian silk. He sips slowly now, turning the note over in his hand, not sure if he should open it.

Eventually the maddening heat in his heart and the iron weight in his belly drive him to open it, slowly, carefully.

It is a simple letter, and in its simplicity it destroys Draco. Harry Potter has been uncommitted anywhere for six months, and not a word has come from him. Draco figured he understood why Harry had left in the first place, just after Draco had purchased this one-bedroom apartment: he'd wanted to keep Draco safe. But he'd figured there'd be updates occasionally, just one word here and there. But there had been nothing, and gradually Draco had realized that Harry might never have intended to be with him. The one time Draco had dared to let himself believe in monogamy and allowed himself to fall in love, real love—true love, maybe, if such a thing exists—and the man he'd chosen left him. He'd been so heartbroken he had even managed to get out of bed to send a letter after Harry, sure he would get a least some sort of communication in return.

He had been wrong. Only silence had come.

And six months ago, when everything had finally come to an end, Draco had dared to hope that his love might come back to him, like a faithful boomerang. He imagined opening the door to go to work one day to find the tall youth with the black hair standing there, studying his face with intense green eyes, and then taking Draco in his arms and kissing him with such strength and fury. He'd tear at Draco hungrily, ripping off his own clothes in the process, and fucking him so hard and so passionately Draco wouldn't be able to walk for days. But nothing happened, and eventually he stopped hoping—expecting—that it would. He forced himself to put his most meaningful relationship behind him. He'd pushed it to the back of his mind and gotten rid of everything Harry had ever touched, seen, or given him. He had never even been inside the apartment Draco had bought.

He should have known better than to trust in the hearts of others. Now he does, painful though the lesson had been to learn.

Draco polishes off his drink and puts the cup in the dishwasher before he turns out the light. As he passes the trash can, he lets the message drop from his hand without hesitation, and makes his way to the bedroom. The door closes gently behind him.

Not long after, the letter, poorly positioned in a full trash can, slides onto the floor. It opens face-up, revealing a line of thick black handwriting to a dark and empty room, where no one will take in its message.

_I'm coming home._


	2. II: Beg

"There's a visitor for you, sir," chirps the rotund Irish secretary in her appallingly high voice as she totters into the glass-walled office. "In the waiting room." Her beautiful blonde—and young, too young to be so lovely, she feels like a pedophile—employer glances up from his work only momentarily.

"Damn, must be Cannon—early, isn't he? Well, alright then. I have to run these over to Accounting, would you mind sending him in and letting him know I'll be back in a minute? " The little woman smiles her brightest smile at him—oh, how could she think that way, at her age!—and nods agreeably, exiting the office.

Fat Annie with her charming cankles and sprightly brown curls escorts Mr. Cannon into the office of Mr. Draco Malfoy, a high-up with stainless steel and dark wood furniture and a glorious view of the Thames. He could very well own this company in the next couple years, wealthy as he is. But you know, Annie's heard a lot about Mr. Cannon, and she rather thought he would be older and, well, more debonair—but instead he looks young and unwashed, though he _is _very polite—and so lovely! Goodness, it must be her lucky day.

"Mr. Malfoy will be with you directly, Mr. Cannon," she sings good-naturedly, offering to get him a beverage which he declines before leaving him alone in the office and retreating back to her desk.

Mr. Cannon walks around the giant office, hands in his pockets. His skin is waxy pale under the gray light of the day pouring in feebly from the huge windows, revealing dark shadows beneath his eyes. His dark hair is damp with rain.

He notes that there are no personal effects anywhere. No pictures of family, no trinkets of home. It's impossible to tell who occupies this space. Except the great businessman knows Mr. Malfoy's personal style. He recognizes the clean, sleek lines, from the legs of the desk to the simple slats in the bookcases. Nothing is out of place. Nothing is personal. It all looks simple, but he can feel the power from the cold of the steel radiating from it; he can well imagine the lengths Mr. Malfoy went to so he could achieve this incredible feeling of authority, cool and minimalist.

He reaches toward the bookshelves with a rough hand and runs his callused fingers along their spines. They're all for show, like an image in the Pottery Barn catalog. Nothing in them reveals anything true about their owner. He looks so tired in the bleak light—but then again, he's a busy man, and if he wants to get things done, well, he'll have to do them himself. Just then, he hears the quiet swing of the glass door.

"Mr. Cannon," comes the silky voice. "Please, take a seat. I"—the voice stops. Draco can immediately tell by the broadness of the back and the way the man he holds himself that Mr. Cannon is not in the office. Suddenly flashes break in his brain—the well-muscled naked shoulders bathed in moonlight, the hardened hands extending him coffee in the early morning, the steam fogging over the reflection of the black hair when they showered together after the coffee was gone.

"Draco," Harry says in a broken tone as he turns around. Draco's breath goes out of him and into the air. Nobody speaks; atoms and particles freeze. Outside the sky darkens as rain clouds move closer, reaping their watery wrath on the city below, cracking as they open like the gates of hell. Draco is sure he has never seen a more pathetic creature, with the torn dirty jeans and the stained sweatshirt. Even his glasses are filthy.

"Draco, I…" Harry trails off as he moves to the other side of the desk, still a good ten feet away. Draco is motionless against the door, completely lost for words. When he sees that he has wrested no perceptible reaction from an arctic Draco, words begin to spill from Harry like the rain hitting the windows with increasing intensity. "I'm sorry, I know…I know you probably don't want to see me, and I want to respect your wishes, but…I've been in London for a week. I don't have any money, and nobody is in town right now. I have nowhere to go. I hate that I have to ask this—I am so sorry, you have no idea—and—and I know you don't want me here, it's just for the night, I don't want to be here, asking you these terrible things, but I…I need a place to stay, and I was hoping…" Draco feels outside his body. Surely this can't be happening. He pinches the tender skin of his left hand with the fingers of his right; it hurts. He must be awake. He summons up what is left in his lungs.

"_No_," he nearly hisses. "Are you…_kidding…me_?"

"Draco, please," Harry pleads, and truly he looks repentant. "I have nowhere else to go."

"I don't _care,_ Potter! I don't care where you sleep. Go live under the bridge! Go live in the trash dump. If you are expecting sympathy, you have come to the last place you can expect to find it. I suggest you look elsewhere, starting, perhaps, at the bottom of the ocean. Go-somewhere-else." Harry is unhappy, but not surprised, to see the white flush of Draco's cheeks. It hurts him equally to see that his face is still beautiful, so beautiful.

"I _have _been. I've been sleeping on benches in parks and staying out of sight, I've been stealing food with the cloak! I haven't had a proper bed in months, I"—

"Out. I want you out of this office. Right now." Draco grasps the silver handle of the door and tugs it open. "_Out!"_

But Harry doesn't budge. Draco is astonished when the tall young man drops to his ragged knees; his head is bowed, like a monk in prayer, his hands dirtier still against the white of the flat industrial carpet.

"Draco, I am not too proud to beg," he says in the quietest, most distant whisper. For a long moment, he is silent, and Draco wonders if he has finished speaking when Harry continues in the same miserable, heartbreaking voice.

"I need your help."

Draco closes his eyes and releases a staggered sigh. He can feel Annie's eyes on him, wondering what madness is taking place here. But something about the way Harry is bent and unclean—that incredibly vulnerable position—with his head lowered in dark shame and the long stretch of dirt across his face, the crack in the left lense of his glasses, the curvature of his back twisted with pain and loss and pleading pulls at what is left of the strings of Draco's devastated heart.

"If I give you money for a hotel, will you disappear?"

"Someone might recognize me, and I can't get in with the cloak," Harry replies despondently.

And Draco stands looking at him, so torn between laughter and vomit and screaming and crying and killing that he can't decide which path to take, his blood boiling with ten thousand emotions. He can't deal with this. He doesn't know what he should do. But he knows what he _will_ do, and he hates it and hates himself for it.

"Annie," he calls out, swinging with the door towards the secretary's desk, smooth as a sail, "please call a car to take this man to my apartment." She nods confusedly.

"Of course, sir—and, sir, Mr. Cannon is in the lobby?"

"Yes, this time that'll be true," Draco says in a sarcastic tone much more like himself. He closes the door and turns back to the wretched figure still bent over the floor, who finally rises as the office door shuts. The light in his eyes—still such a brilliant green, even now, like this—is weak but sparkling, and the gratefulness is clearly stamped upon his grubbily striking features. His dry lips part and begin to try whisper their gratitude, try to give voice and shape to whisps of things too strong for words.

"One night," Draco growls. "I will be home late, and I don't want to see you or know you are there. As far as I'm concerned, you aren't. If it doesn't stay that way"—he draws his wand slowly and menacingly, not quite pointing it at Harry but not pointing it in any direction that would give a different suggestion, "—I _will _hex the living shit out of you. Get the hell out of my office."

Harry does as bidden. He stops just in front of Draco, unsure of what to say and tries to catch his eye, but Draco merely goes to his desk as if his day has been without interruption and his face doesn't meet Harry's.

"Send Mr. Cannon in, please, Annie," he calls to the right of Harry's figure, then turns his attention back to his work. When he glances up next, Harry is gone.

**Note: Home was intended originally to be a one-piece story, but I have started working with it as one with multiple chapters. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this yet, but I do have the next two chapters mostly finished and I have two different endings in mind, so we'll see how it goes. Let me know what you're thinking here!**


	3. III: Blood

III

**III**

Draco's apartment is _beautiful._

Katie left him mere moments ago, not sure of his identity or his presence but accepting her tenant's guest just the same. She opened the door for him, bid him good day, and tottered away back towards the elevator.

Harry is still standing in the doorway. His grimy bag slides down his shoulder and falls to the ground, almost as far down as his jaw.

The apartment is huge and decorated with exceedingly good taste. Unlike the office, the essence of Draco is all over this place. It's clean and exquisite, perfectly unforced. The room is cozy but simple, with white endtables and gorgeous red Brazilian cherry floors. The walls are a soft eggshell with lovely wainscoting, setting off the shine of the wood floors perfectly. The sofa is long and curvaceous in a wondrous blue. Each item, each little decorative thing, is clearly expensive but does not flaunt it. It is the most simply luxurious place Harry can remember being.

He can see that Draco is in the lines as he walks his way through, in the colors; the shapes, the sizes, the straightness of everything. It's so Draco Harry could laugh.

But as Harry makes his way through, something doesn't feel right. He can tell that the young man who lives here is different than he used to be. Draco, who is obstinately clean yet never makes his bed, has pulled the covers to their proper places. Errant shoes have found homes in organizational, labeled boxes.

_Everything is perfect._

It's as if, after Harry failed to return, Draco packed away his pain by putting it in boxes. The apartment reeks of him, but it's so clean and so orderly Harry has a hard time picking up what it reeks _of_—Draco's real personality, vivacious and sly. It's too orderly. Too clean.

It hurts Harry. Draco didn't deserve what he did to him. Why did he come here? He shouldn't have. He should just shower and take off as though he'd never been here. But…he _wants _to stay. Draco had been so angry earlier, but maybe Harry could get him to calm down. Get him to talk. He was sure he could get Draco to look into his eyes and _listen._ Maybe Draco would give him the chance to explain, the chance Harry didn't deserve.

He has so much to apologize for, he thinks to himself.

And he knows there's no way—no reason why—Draco would forgive him, and it hurts to think that it's no less than he deserves. There are so many things he wants to say and he doesn't even know half the words that would let him try.

He doesn't think he can bear to hurt Draco any more than he already has, so Harry's plan is to take a shower and get clean, and then to leave.

But he's so tired…

When he's clean, Harry throws on his only other outfit—for when he gets chances to sleep indoors—while his jeans and sweatshirt are in the wash, and sits down on the beautiful sofa. He thinks that if he just takes a nap, curls up just for a minute, he won't sleep for long. And he's so _tired_…

—

A little past ten that night, Draco comes home. He opens the door as gingerly as he can, and when he sees no light escaping through the crack between the door and the frame, he thinks he is safe to enter.

And when he sees Harry dead asleep on his priceless sofa, he can't help but wish he had never come back at all.

The tall youth is sprawled out—defenseless and weak, still—with his ankles and wrists hanging delicately over the side. He is, unquestionably, out, and Draco would love for it to stay that way.

Draco closes the door and walks quietly into the kitchen where he pours himself a glass of water. He stands there for a moment, leaning against the sink and staring out the window, watching the lights of the city flicker below. And when he turns nonchalantly to the left to make sure Harry is still asleep, he sees a pair of brilliant green eyes, flickering with the light pouring in from nocturnal London. He turns back to the view as if he took no notice.

Harry sits up.

"Thank you," is all he says, and he says it in the softest voice, reminiscent of this morning, cloudy with misery.

"I'm not supposed to be aware you're here."

"But you are. You have to be." Draco's lips purse.

"Stop talking, Potter. You'll dig yourself into a hole."

"You haven't called me 'Potter' in a couple years," Harry comments; there is an unmistakable waver of pain in his voice.

"I didn't think we were on a first-term basis these days." Draco turns his face, serpentine and silver, and locks his chrome eyes on Harry, who sighs and buckles under the gaze, turning away.

"I guess we're not," he says. "I don't blame you for not…wanting to be." As Draco's eyes rake Harry's face, his belly twinges. Even here, even like this, Harry is so damned _beautiful_. It's not right and it certainly shouldn't be legal. If he closes his eyes, he knows what image will find its way unbidden into the darkness behind his eyelids, and he is not prepared to let it come. He isn't prepared to let his thoughts take that path. And then Harry, who invariably and consistently digs his own verbal graves by trying to explain himself, begins to speak.

"I want to talk to you," he sighs. "You don't have to say anything, you can just listen. I just"—

"Don't," Draco replies curtly in a deadpan voice. "I am going to tell you this just the one time, _Harry_. While I am sure that you flatter yourself by assuming I will have this conversation with you, I have no interest in talking about whatever passed between us, not now, not ever. I will let you stay the night here, but if you try and speak to me one more time, so help me I _will_ throw you out and not think twice about it. Can you comprehend this, _Harry, _or do I need to throw you out anyway? Should I repeat myself? What," he nearly hissed, "can I do to make sure I am understood?" Harry looks abashed, a lovely pink flooding his chiseled face. He says nothing.

"Go back to sleep. I get up late; be gone before noon." Draco polishes off his water and puts his glass in the dishwasher in a routine gesture and vanishes into the bedroom, leaving Harry to curl back up on the couch with only his own skin to warm him.

—

Two hours later, Draco tiptoes quietly along the dark apartment, thanking the gods that it is constructed well enough that the wood floors don't creak. It's a little after midnight and he is clean and dressed in elegant, understated black. He doesn't need adornments, no hair gel, rings, cologne—he is beautiful as fuck the way he is, and he knows it. He closes the door to his bedroom gingerly, half terrified of waking Harry. The inevitable conversation following Harry's discovery of Draco's nighttime activities is not something he has any desire ever to discuss. He knows Harry—at least, he used to—and he knows his little speech earlier won't have meant much . He gingerly takes his apartment keys off the keyrack, careful not to let their silvery jingles sing into sleeping ears, and steals across the living room towards the front door. It feels like it's going to be a good night, he thinks.

"Draco," comes a soft voice behind him. The young man stops on a dime. Harry.

"What?" he asks shortly, immobile. He does not turn to face Harry, whose voice is full of concern. He should have just kept going, and now he's kicking himself for getting sucked into talking again, the last thing he needs or wants.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"It's after midnight."

"Perhaps I'm a vampire. I only operate under the cover of dark," Draco drawls slowly. Harry can picture his ex-lover's expression, twisted with disdain and sneering with poor humor. His words drip condescension.

"Not funny," he says, and Draco can hear him push the blanket down the couch and the weight of his body rise on two feet. "Draco, look at me." He does as bidden.

"I don't think where I'm going is any of your business. I'd forgotten how lightly you sleep," is the curt retort. When Harry doesn't say anything, Draco shifts his body slightly. Harry steps forward, and there is an incredible intensity in his gaze. That look always made Draco forfeit whatever argument they were in; he never could deny those eyes anything, even now.

"I'm going to a club," he finally concedes. Harry's brows furrow.

"You should stay here," he says softly. "I want to talk to you about…about this. There are things I need to say. I know you must want to say something too." He can almost feel Draco roll his eyes in the darkness.

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Draco…" Harry moves closer still. He looks scrumptiously disheveled, in his sweatpants and t-shirt, and the fine features of his face are enhanced by the absence of his thick-rimmed glasses. He is so close now that Draco can feel the heat radiating from his body. He tries to move away, but Harry closes the remaining gap between them until Draco feels the knob of the front door in his back. Harry's expression is open, a strange light flickering across his face. His fingers grace Draco's, who swats as if at a bug. The taller boy is undeterred. He leans in slightly, his lips at Draco's ear, his arms around either side of him so he cannot move.

"You can't pretend I don't exist forever," he whispers.

"Is that a challenge?" Draco bristles. "Move, Harry." The sensation of Harry's mouth on his neck has begun to seep into his deeper nerves, and it isn't fair.

"No," is the sweet reply. Draco is trying to resist and begins to push his head away from Harry, but the black-haired youth brings his right arm tight around Draco's middle and raises his left hand, placing it very gently on Draco's jaw and neck, rendering the head unable to move, to escape. The blonde struggles a little, but he has never been as strong as Harry, and eventually he finds he has begun to succumb to this unforeseen siege.

"Please, let me in," Harry asks delicately. He nips very gently at Draco's ear, his nose taking in the heady scent of him. He slithers down the neck with his lips, his tongue tracing shapes in the soft skin, moves up again to kiss the sensitive space beneath the angle of Draco's jaw. Harry hears the sigh and feels the fight go out of Draco; the slight frame melts a little beneath him, and the rigid tension in the muscles releases. The right side of Draco's face is still captured in Harry's left hand, and although Draco can't move it, he notes the incredible gentleness with which Harry holds him. But it isn't enough.

Their eyes meet, lock. Harry's are sparkling, Draco's hazy with desire. Hardly a moment passes before Harry's grip on Draco's waist loosens and he pushes him hard up against the door; his hand, whose thumb was holding the beautiful pale face slightly to the side, wrenches right and Harry's mouth comes down like a thunderbolt on Draco's. And before Draco's mind has a chance to process what is happening, his lips have parted beneath Harry's and his tongue is in a mouth not his own. There's a body pressed tightly against his, and he feels himself push back against it. Harry's hand has slid from Draco's cheek to the back of his head, holding it as their kiss becomes ferocious. Their heads turn to opposite angles and Harry sighs against Draco, who has sucked Harry's lower lip into his mouth and is biting it a little less than gently, an action he knows Harry used to love. Breathing deepens, hearts race, desire flares like a blue electric snap between them, like lightning, into their veins. Their heads are turning and twisting as their kiss becomes the stuff of violence, hands pulling at hair and teeth coming down on soft flesh too hard to be romantic. Harry thinks he can taste blood, but he can't be sure it's his own.

His hands find themselves at Draco's lower half, fiddling with this stupid goddamn belt. Their mouths have fused; one boy's tongue isn't his, and neither is the second one invading space that previously belonged to him alone. They come apart briefly as Harry's usually deft fingers struggle with an unusually difficult button; he can't get it undone, as he is quickly becoming under the rough bites Draco is ravaging on his neck, sure to bruise if not to bleed. The pressure of Draco's teeth becomes a little much for Harry and he forcefully turns the petite face back to his own, hungrily devouring the hot mouth with his. His lips are bruised and maybe bleeding, his neck throbs, and he is more consumed with volcanic current and pulsating desire than he has ever known himself to be. Draco is preparing to lose himself; indeed, it seems he has little choice. His neck cranes back as Harry's hand finally gets where it's going, the predicament solved. The speed of their motions mounts and Draco can feel himself slipping out of the material world and into ecstasy.

"I know you still love me," Harry sighs in Draco's ear.

And then it stops. The motion, the air, the twinkling of the stars and the traffic in the street, the electricity of the universe spanning from the sky to the ocean. The electricity between them. It all stops like someone stomped on the brake pedal of a full car at one hundred miles per hour, sending produce and packages flying. Sending Draco flying.

Blood boils beneath his creamy skin; the words have fired into the very core of him. Poisoned darts. Serrated blades. Barbed wire. It's like he's been socked in the gut.

With a fresh flush of hatred, he bites down on Harry's neck so hard he can taste the blood and pushes him away with force he didn't know he had. The audacity of Harry to say it—to manipulate, to take for granted—to do all the things that drove him crazy, and to always be right, but so wrong—how could he? Disgust and bile rise in Draco's throat. His hands are shaking, his eyes ablaze with revulsion. Harry is standing halfway across the room, hand on his neck, his disbelief evident. A little blood has smeared across his fingers, but the gleam from the stain is like nothing against the pure white heat in Draco's expression. His hair is ruffled and a spot of blood graces his sneering mouth, contrasting oddly with the translucent beauty of his white skin, like a doll's skin.

"No, I don't," he snarls, with a quick and sinister swipe to his face with a black sleeve to smear away the blood glistening there. In the turn of a second he's gone, and Harry is staring at the back of the front door.

**Note: Thank you guys so much for reading – you have no idea how much it means to me! Here's hoping you like this chapter. Things are going to get dark for a while, but whether or not it stays that way has yet to be seen ******


	4. IV: Rupture

**Note: Hi guys – sorry this is a little later than usual. My laptop decided I'd used it enough, so thanks to that (and the distraction of the Olympics) things are a little behind schedule. The new power cord isn't going to be here for another two weeks, so I'll try and get chapter 5 written and uploaded as soon as I can from another computer. Enjoy!**

**Also, the same thing is going on for 'To Breathe'. Hopefully the new part of that will be available soon. If you're not following it, you should totally start and tell me if the latest chapter is stupid or not.**

**Thanks!**

Harry has been waiting in Draco's apartment for three days. Three days, and Draco hasn't come back.

Harry has no idea what to do. He's already been all over town. He's even been to Draco's office on several occasions, and either he wasn't there or his assistant told him he was a meeting or unavailable in some way.

"You're the one who broke his 'eart, then, aren't you," Annie said to him as she sat behind her desk the first day he'd come looking, a guarded, somewhat contemptuous look on her shiny face. It was more of a statement, a realization, than a question. "Well, he's not in." She eyed him warily. "And as far as you're concerned, sir, I think I should tell you that he isn't ever going to be in."

Harry had left the office, shattered.

Draco doesn't answer his cell phone, if it even gets a chance to ring. It's like Draco has fallen off the edge of the planet.

He has barely slept since Draco left, nothing more than an hour or two a day on the couch. He refuses to miss Draco, if he comes by. He's waiting like a faithful dog, hoping Draco throws him a bone. But time passes and nothing happens. The door remains closed.

So Harry waits. He's sure Draco will come back eventually; he does this, sometimes, gets upset and leaves. But never for more than a few hours. Three days is more than he can bear; Draco might have done something stupid or gotten hurt or moved from the country. He doesn't know. But Harry didn't mean him any harm. It's just that he doesn't know how to be himself around Draco, beautiful and debonair. Harry feels completely inadequate next to him—he always has. He fucked up, and this time he fucked up quite royally. And even though he knows Draco has no reason to forgive him and that Harry overstepped himself—crossed a line he had no right to cross, a line that's jagged and bold—he hopes, fervently and religiously, that Draco will let him back into his life. Because Harry loves him. Unquestionably, truly, and simply, he loves him. This is the only absolute fact of their relationship, the only constant about Harry's person. This is the only thing about them that makes any sense.

On the morning of the fourth day, Harry finally lets himself sleep a little on the Italian silk couch, his knees bunched up against his chest. He doesn't want to, but he can't fight his body anymore. It literally walks itself to the sofa while his brain wanders in aimless loops somewhere else. He lays down and is out in under thirty seconds.

It's hours before he notices the letter.

—

Draco has been face-down on the giant bed for almost four days. It smells like monogamy and a girl, two things his doesn't, and that helps him forget.

"Draco," she says as she flops down on the bed beside him. "This is getting ridiculous. You _have _to get up. You need to get out of my bed."  
"I don't want to," Draco mumbles into the fat pillow. "Marcus isn't even here."

"Come on. You need to go outside or get some exercise or something." He doesn't move.

"Draco!" she sighs loudly, snatching the pillow from the other side of the bed. She begins to beat him with it until he rolls over, bitter and grumpy.

"Mother Nature is very therapeutic," she says in a tempting tone. "At the very least, you need to move down to the guest bedroom. You need some fresh air, but more than that you need to _get out of my bed_." Draco glances at the window.

"It's raining," he remarks. She groans in frustration, but he does sit up.

The night after…well, the night he left, Draco didn't go to a club. He didn't even go to a bar. He made a straight beeline for the Parkinson manor, the residence of his best friend and her family. He hadn't even knocked twice before Pansy, fully clothed and wide-awake, had pulled him inside.

Without telling her, she had known with her woman's intuition that it was Harry. He was ever the only one in possession of power strong enough to make Draco like this. It was something nobody else could ever do, not even her, years ago.

It was true. When they were younger, student magicians then, she had loved him. Or she thought she had, anyway: her parents had dreams of Pansy marrying Draco, the perfect pure-blood boy, beautiful and ash-pale, like her. And he seemed like a good person with whom to cast her lot, so she'd gone after him, and he hadn't exactly rejected. Besides, it was expected of them: they would be famous and wealthy and pure, and that was all Pansy believed she needed.

And she had tried to make it work, but when she saw the way Draco looked at Harry, she knew what the veneer of contempt held there hid. What escaped everyone else did not escape her. She hadn't thought it possible: she reviled Harry Potter with the same hot fury that Draco did, and she wanted him to fail almost more than anyone else. She hates him still, but not for the same reasons. She doesn't detest him for who he is, but what he can do: she hates that Harry has the ability to break Draco at whim. But, she understands, if it weren't Harry, it would be someone else, and she would hate that person just as much. Pansy feels like it's her duty to protect her best friend, and she does not like to see his heart handed over so completely to someone she once thought so unworthy.

Both she and Draco have grown up and moved past the prejudices of their parents, finally, though Pansy can't help but feel that old familiar pang in the company of wizards and witches of mixed blood. She never voices it aloud, but it has been engrained in her since childhood. Much like Catholicism, it is not something anyone ever truly overcomes.

But because she and Draco were "meant" to be, she had stuck by him. She'd listened as his cynical and hurtful insults became less and less meaningful. She'd listened as the ice in the tone of Draco's voice melted and the trademark sneer fell into a little half-smile. Soon the abuses, both magical and verbal, he had previously shot at Harry like gunfire had become nothing more than empty motions, and Pansy knew it.

But she never talked to him about it. She didn't want to believe her perfect pure-blooded prince was in love with someone else. And not just _someone else; _no, Draco had gone and given his heart to Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. As if Harry needed another honor he didn't deserve.

Pansy had been so full of hatred and resentment at the time, for both of them, that she hadn't been able to focus for the rest of the year. She'd lost twenty pounds, too nauseous to eat and hoping, just hoping, if she were more beautiful, Draco would come back to her. She could have revealed them, the stupid little lovebirds. She could have ruined everything for them.

But she didn't.

Firstly, she couldn't bring herself to even speak the words. And Draco could tell she knew, but he never asked her to keep her secret. Even if she'd wanted to—and it certainly would have been easy for Pansy—she wouldn't have been able to accept it, to accept anyone else knowing. But as that year came to a close, she saw in Draco's eyes that it wasn't a choice for him. Something about Harry had transfixed Draco in a way reminiscent of fairy tales. She glimpsed them together here and there, and she could tell they were two men in one; one soul passed between the flesh of them like a secret binding, like a silver harpoon. The sight of it, while it did not exactly please her, reminded her that sometimes, life isn't a plan. Sometimes, the turns it takes lead you somewhere exceptionally astonishing, somewhere that is neither the stuff of thoughts nor nightmares, but altogether new, remarkable, and, often, wonderful.

Pansy gave up on Draco at the end of their sixth year. She stayed with him, superficially, because she believed he wouldn't want anyone to know about Harry. And she wasn't the only one who knew about them: rumors had begun to circulate and people had begun to suspect what was between them. Pansy found herself defending Draco, and even Harry, sometimes. In later years, she would come to coolly accept him as a friend because she could not find it in her to reject someone Draco loved so devotedly.

And soon the time came when she wouldn't have to speak for them at all.

"Pansy," Draco said to her late one night as they studied together, "you don't have to keep up with this. With this show."

"I know," was her reply, said without her even looking up.

"Why?"

"Why? Why do I protect you? Because you're my friend, Draco. I don't like it, and in fact I quite hate it, but I've seen you. Whatever is going on with…him…is your business, and if it makes you happy"—she paused and shrugged a little, eyes still on her work—"then whatever, it's not a big deal."

Draco had stared at her then as if he were seeing her for the first time. She'd done this for him. She hadn't said a word about anything, not to anyone, and he hadn't even asked it of her. She'd stood by him, kept him safe from harm, because _he was her friend. _This girl he'd been with first to make his parents happy and second because he was afraid, and she had simply let him.

"I want to tell them," he told her. "About Harry." And all she said was,

"Okay."

They have been best friends ever since.

Pansy did eventually find love in the shape of the tall and broad Marcus Bouchier, whom she married upon graduation. He was able to love her in spite of her somewhat numerous faults (and, she felt, in spite of her damnable pug-nose), and their relationship is strong and true. But Marcus works for the Ministry now and travels often, leaving Pansy—who kept her last name to inherit wealth from her parents upon their deaths—and their five-year-old daughter, Evie, at the huge manor.

And as a mother with a young child, Pansy needs her bed back. Draco has been in it, almost deathly still, for the last four days.

"I know you're in a lot of pain, Draco," she says. "I know that. But I have to get some decent sleep. Do you think you can move to one of the spare bedrooms?" He nods slowly, eyes downcast, like a child. She slaps his thigh and sings her praise and practically hoists him down the hall to the other bedroom—finally, she will be able to sleep without his great tragic mass beside her. He slumps down on the tidy bed and she mimics his movement.

"Now," she says quietly, "are you ready to talk about this?"

"I can't believe him," Draco says in something more than a whisper but less than a hiss. "I can't fathom it. Why would he do this? Why now?"

"Harry doesn't generally act rashly. He probably has a reason."

"He can't give a reason for this. There is nothing in the world he could say that would make this any more fucking reasonable." A silver bolt flashes behind his still down-cast eyes, like a current through flat water. Pansy finds herself holding his hand.

"What did he say, then?" Silence. A shadow passes her broad face as soon as realization dawns. "You didn't ask him, did you?" she poses slowly. The trademark sneer marls his lips and his eyes roll to the ceiling as he turns his face away from hers.

"Oh, Christ, Draco—really? He somehow got you to let him kiss you, but you didn't even bother to ask him why he wanted to talk to you? I mean, come _on_. He could have gone somewhere else if he wanted. Whatever he told you was bullshit, you know that—he's got that fancy cloak, he can go anywhere he damn well pleases, no matter what he says. But he didn't: he went to _you_, Draco. Surely you realized this."

"I…" he sighs as he unfurls on the tightly-made guest bed (nowhere near as cushy as Pansy's colossal California king). "I know." He starts to pull a pillow over his head, and Pansy doesn't stop him.

"Oh, sweetie," she murmurs quietly, petting him. "Why didn't you let him talk to you? You know he's worrying about you. He'll figure out where you are before long. If there's one goddamn thing Harry fucking Potter can't do, it's to be bothered with himself."

"I don't give a flying rat's ass what he can and can't do, Pansy. I didn't let him talk to me because I don't care what he says. It doesn't make a difference. He did what he did. He left me. He fucking _abandoned _me. He turned me into a little fucking square, home for dinner every night. He turned me inside out and made me love him, and he left me." A sudden jerk on the bed lets Pansy know Draco is fighting tears. In all their years together, she has only seen him cry once, and then he tried to let the falling rain disguise it.

"He left you because he loved you," is her soft whisper. "You know what he had to go through. He didn't want you to get hurt."

"If he loved me, he would have stayed. I hate what he's done to me. What he's turned me into."

Pansy is silent, still holding Draco's hand as he sobs his soundless sorrow into her expensive pillow. It's a few minutes before he is able to speak again, his small voice muffled by the feather down.

"It's unjust, Pansy. Truly fucking unfair. He shouldn't get to do this to me. Leave and then demand back into my life. That's like trying to attain entry into the Forbidden fucking City. I can't…believe he would even say that to me."

"Say what?"

"Say 'I know you still love me' like it was nothing. Who _says_ shit like that? Goddamn." She finds that wetness is prickling behind her own eyes, threatening to spill over. She had been stoic in her youth, but having a child brought out the maternal in her.

"You know why he said that, Draco."

"Bullshit. I don't know why he does anything."

"He said it," Pansy whispers, "because he knows it's true." Draco's body stiffens on the bed. "You know it, too."

"That is the most"—

"Don't do that, Draco. Don't hold a grudge against him until you know what exactly you're holding it against. Don't hate him for trying to explain, and if you keep denying him the chance, you're going to regret it. You're being ridiculous and stubborn. Harry hasn't exactly acted honorably, but he never does anything without thinking about it. Believe me, he had a reason for coming back. He loves you, Draco. He always has. I don't think anything has happened that could ever change that. You have to let him explain. Go home, Draco, go home and talk to him. Give him another chance." Pansy's voice is full of concern, and she thinks she's gotten through to him when his beautiful face, white and drawn, emerges from behind the pillow and he sits up.

She thinks he's listened to her until she meets his chrome eyes, flickering with lividness and damage. There is no clemency to be found in the barren wasteland looking back at her.

"No," he says flatly. "He had his chance."

Pansy closes her eyes and turns away, inhaling and exhaling slowly. She rises from the bed.

"I have to go out," she explains in a voice drawn tight with irritation. "The nanny will be here for Evie soon so you won't be alone." She makes to exit the room but turns around, her face grave-like and humorless. "I've given you my advice. If you want to be a stubborn ass about this, I can't help you. And if you want to continue to be pissy and wallow in self-pity, to fall in love with your own broken heart, you'll have to find safe haven somewhere else."

She closes the door loudly behind her when she goes.

_She doesn't understand,_ Draco thinks to himself. _Harry has no right to do this to me. I have been too hurt to forgive him. He doesn't deserve it. If she knew what this felt like…if she knew that in my dreams I have no heart, no way to feel like this, she wouldn't ask me to forgive him. Only in deepest sleep can I find peace, unattached from life in what could be considered a kind of death. To wake is to know, and to know is to feel, and to feel…to feel is more than I can do. It was stupid of me ever to try. I can't go back there. I can't. If she knew, if she knew…_

And then, abruptly, he knew what he had to do to get rid of Harry. A deep breeze of air forms in his chest and moves upward, out of Draco's throat and then his mouth, like progress.

Draco takes the phone out of his pocket. He flips it open and scrolls past the obscene number of calls from the number he refuses to recognize and dials one he keeps in speed-dial.

A woman answers on the second ring.

"Hello, Mrs. Walter," he says smoothly. "Time for a change of scenery."

—

Darkness has fallen when Harry awakens. He has no idea how long he's been asleep, but he feels like it's been too long. Draco might have come by and he was too out of it to notice. Immediately he leaps from the couch and looks around: no change, except for a pile of mail by the front door. Katie must have dropped it off—Draco usually picks up the post on his way in from work, but as he hasn't been here, it must have been stacking up enough that she decided it would be best to just slide it through the brass slot in the door.

Well, Harry can't very well leave it there, so he walks over and picks it up. He doesn't mean to pry. And, technically, he doesn't: as he moves back across the titanic apartment to put the mail on the granite countertop, he notices a peculiar letter.

More peculiarly, it's addressed to Harry Potter.

He recognizes the handwriting immediately and drops the rest of the mail in his hasty attempt to open it. There is no return address. Harry practically annihilates the silky envelope with his large, callused hands, almost ripping the small note that falls out of it, which he catches midair with shaking hands. He reads it; he reads it twice, thrice, four times, and slumps to the couch again, his eyes still on its curt words.

_I've sold the apartment._

_Get out._


	5. V: Hunt

V

**SO sorry about the wait. A million excuses, some tweaking here and there…hope this version is better. It feels that way!**

**V**

The men come the next day.

They are big burly men with muscles like rocks and determined expressions. They're here to take away furniture the new homeowners didn't buy or didn't want, wrapping pieces in plastic and hauling them away to the large truck outside. They even take the gorgeous smoky blue sofa, the priceless one that has been Harry's bed for a little over a week.

But he isn't sleeping there now. He's standing out of the way under his invisibility cloak, watching them. He hopes the men will say something about where the previous homeowner of this model apartment has gone, but hears nothing for his trouble. Soon, the furniture has been taken away. So much was sold, down to the clothes in Draco's wardrobe and the sheets on his bed.

Harry is alone now in a flat where nobody lives. He can scarcely believe it. Draco sold almost _everything. _Because of _him. _He had only wanted to talk, and he didn't mean…for anything else. But something he'd done had distressed Draco so much that he had sold his home and his possessions and fled somewhere, like a bird whose nest had been polluted by human hands, viscous black tar spread over its round and delicate twig-and-hair woven structure.

Oh, that hurt. Draco, Harry remembers, has always been something of a drama queen. But usually he did it to get some reaction out of Harry, some kind of attention drawn from him, almost as a child might do. But it didn't feel like attention was the answer this time. In fact, what Draco wanted—needed, even—was for Harry to leave him be.

This, of course, is exactly what Harry will never do.

He can't.

His stormy eyes rove the half-empty flat, beautiful and quiet. Some things remain in their places while many of their counterparts have gone on, but what has been irrevocably lost is the unique sense of Draco Malfoy. Even though he had this flat tailored to suit his own tastes, Harry would never know it now.

But Draco _is_ out there, somewhere.

Harry's despair lifts at this thought. Draco isn't here, but that doesn't mean he is _nowhere, _lost in the wild expanses between space and time. While his life resembles something a little like a fantasy, a fairy-tale, and tragic comedy, it's not a science fiction novel. Draco can't have disappeared into thin air!

And Harry is going to find Draco. Wherever he is, whatever it takes, Harry is going after him. If he has to wrestle a dragon and steal its egg to find the answer, he'll do it. If he has to confront the men in masks and the ghouls of the soul of the water again, nothing will stop him.

Of this, Harry is absolutely and resolutely certain.

For the first time in a long while, Harry smiles as a small flourish of hope blooms in his chest.

—

Pansy sits in a wonderful claw-foot chair beside one of the many exiguous fireplaces in her giant house, white-marble and well-designed. Within its stony confines a flower-like orange fire conducts, with insubstantial fingers, heat across the room. Five-year-old Evie is at her feet, playing with dolls. The lamp looking over Pansy's shoulder is sleek and clean while maintaining an air of grandeur several centuries old.

In her lap is a book and on her face an expectant expression, one eyebrow slightly raised and a little curl to her lip. Her eyes are on the front door.

She is less than surprised when the knock comes, a frantic, desperate sound. Someone intends to beat down the immense wooden door—and at this rate, they may very well succeed.

Pansy is slow to rise and slow to move, opening the door without the slightest hint of urgency—she knew he would figure it out, sooner or later. Harry's fists are still in the air when it swings by her, but she knows he won't mistake her for the door.

"Hello, Harry," she says coolly, her nearly colorless gray-blue eyes looking up into his, not with a cold expression, but not exactly welcomingly, either.

"Pansy," Harry pants, sounding like he's run all the way here, and he can barely catch his breath, "Draco!"

"He isn't here, Harry." She leans against the door, her face still strangely set, and folds her arms across her yellow dress.

"Where, then?"

"Why don't you come in?" She opens the door wider and allows the gesture to parrot her invitation.

"You know where…he is. You need to…tell me," says Harry as his breathing starts to slow.

"Come in. I'll make some tea." Pansy evaporates into the house.

Distraught, Harry follows her through the hall. The incredible beauty, light and graceful, of the home fails to get to Harry at this point in time.

He finds her in the kitchen. She flicks her wand and a pot begins immediately to fill with water and the knob on the gas stove turns on without the help of human hands.

"Do you have a preference?" she asks offhandedly. "Marcus is kind of a tea connoisseur, so whatever you want, I'm sure we have it." Harry is across the giant kitchen from her, the gray light of the day making his features look hard and exasperated.

"I don't need any tea, Pansy." His voice becomes strained. "I would like to know where Draco is." She turns to face him, her pale eyes slightly narrowed.

"And I'll tell you. But before that, I would very much like for you to sit down and have some tea."

There is something in her cold countenance that tells Harry he has no other choice. Pansy flips her hand again and a tall wooden chair pulls itself from the table, inching towards Harry, and it nudges his leg slightly like a puppy. Resignedly, he sits.

"Will that be black, then? Or green? You're not one of those granola nuts who drinks nothing but green tea and literally lives on twigs and berries, are you?" Pansy asks, frowning. He tells her, gruffly, that black will be fine and that, no, he does not have much of a taste for twigs.

When the tea is ready, Pansy pours two cups and brings them to the table, where she sits opposite Harry.

"Now," she begins as she pushes the cup towards him, "I would like to know what you want with Draco so suddenly."

"Is that any of your business?" he bridles, his tone matching hers in civility, down to the terse undercurrent barely concealed there. She smiles impersonally.

"You know that it is."

"I think that's a conversation I need to have with him first." Looking at her, Harry catches a glimpse of how she looked when they were students. Flashes come to him of her watching him and Draco with her eyes downcast, a slight color in her cheeks, and her mouth tightly closed—a perfect picture of prim discretion. He does owe her this.

Harry sighs.

"He didn't let me…explain. He wouldn't even let me try. You should have seen him, Pansy…"

"I did," she replies quietly, her eyes roving over Harry's ravaged neck. A week later and the wound Draco's teeth inflicted is still red and purple, angry. "Yes, he was here. He left two days ago."

"He was?" Harry demands, then pauses. "And you know where he went." His expression is alert and gleaming as she leans back in her seat, her arms folded, eyes flashing quietly.

"Yes."

"But you won't tell me."

"Not until we got something straight, Harry Potter. Draco is my dearest friend, my oldest friend. Do not forget that you are not the only one who has ever loved him." She squares her shoulders. "I don't love him anymore, not in that way, but he is as much an extension of my person as he is—was—of yours."

_I doubt that_, Harry thinks.

"You shouldn't," says Pansy, as if she can read his thoughts. "I have been his friend and weathered the storm of you since you blew into his life. What hurts him, Harry, ultimately hurts me, and vice versa. Whatever hold you have over him is sacred, and to see you abuse this power, however strange that power is, is completely barbarous. I know how much he loves you—it's not hard to see. It's because he loves you so much that you are able to wound him as easily as you do. I don't dislike you, Harry, but you are only a friend to me as long as you are to Draco."

Harry sits, staring at her. "You're speaking as if I _enjoy _hurting him."

"I don't know about that, Harry. It's probable that you do have deep-seated psychological…issues, but I can't profess to know if sadism is one of them." Though her words are slightly harsh, they are delivered with a grin, letting Harry know her intent here is not all intimidating. "And if you _do _enjoy it, hurting him, I don't doubt he likes it. Really, though, Harry, I hope my meaning here is clear. I don't like that you have the influence to break him if you choose, and I don't like that you have done so. Draco is a mess. I hate that it's your doing. When you hurt him, you hurt me, and I don't like that. I won't stand for it." Harry lowers his eyes, hoping that his face looks repentant. He knows there is truth in what she's saying, but anger and resentment—knowing the truth of it—can't help boiling under his skin. A thousand furious thoughts swirl through his head, reflected in his eyes, and he doesn't want her to see. For once in his life, he knows better.

"However," sighs Pansy, "as I said before, he is still in love with you, though why I cannot say. In spite of everything you've done to him, his heart still belongs to you. And the fact that you came here, to my house, looking for him proves to me that you feel much the same way. I'm not wrong, am I?" she asks, her last words biting and concise. Harry meets her eye.

"No." The word falls heavily, fat with truth and longing, almost as if the chandelier above them had come crashing down on the table across which they gaze at one another, steel against steel.

"Then I have no right to stop you, Harry, and I don't have any intention of standing in the way of something like this. If you love each other, then it is my hope—and my wish—that things work out between the both of you." She finishes her tea.

"…Does that mean you'll tell me where he is?" ventures Harry. After a moment's hesitation, Pansy answers.

"He's in Barcelona."

"_Barcelona? _As in, _Spain?"_

"Yes, Harry, I believe that is where one would find Barcelona," she answers sarcastically, fighting a smile.

"But—why? Why Spain? What--?"

"He and his parents vacationed there when he was young. He sold his flat here and bought something fancy downtown there." Harry leaps from his seat as if he would run immediately to Spain.

But once he is standing he remains grounded.

"I…I can't pay for a plane ticket. I don't have…"

"Oh, please, Harry. I will cover your expenses—Christ knows I need something interesting to do while Marcus is gone. I think that perhaps Draco will forgive me." She smiles dryly as she rises from the table and digs into her expensive handbag and roots out an immense wad of cash, the likes of which Harry hasn't seen in years (if ever). "I knew you were coming," Pansy explains with a half-grin. In addition to the money she scribbles an address on a sheet of paper. She turns to him but keeps the bundle held tightly to her chest. He is raring to go, but she isn't quite prepared to let him.

"Harry," she begins quietly, and he is clearly disturbed that she is keeping him, "something else. I don't know whether or not he will want to talk to you, but he did you an injustice by not allowing you to explain yourself, so I will give you that chance. Regardless, Harry, of what I am doing for you"—she reaches out and wraps a hand very tightly around his wrist, pulling him closer, her grip tightening almost painfully—"regardless, if you hurt him, understand this: if he comes back to me as broken as he is now, I _will_ kill you."

She releases him and he steps away, slightly stunned until she smiles and presses the money and the address into his hand. This is given with some reluctance, but Harry is too agitated to think much of it.

Harry thanks her and kisses her cheek flightily, all of which she accepts with cool graciousness.

On long legs he walks briskly out of the house and sprints across the yard to the street. He hails a cab and gets in. He doesn't look back at Pansy, standing in the doorway with a little blonde child peeking out from behind her legs.

—

Five hours later, Harry's nose is pressed against the window of a small airplane. Red and brown appear below him—the warm colors of Spanish terrain. It's not a long flight but Harry is mad to land, fidgety and uneasy. The elderly woman seated beside him is in fact quite certain he is some kind of junkie, keyed-up as he is.

Minutes later the plane begins to descend. It makes Harry's ears pop painfully, but he doesn't really mind.

"_Bienvenido a Barcelona_," purrs a warm female voice over the airplane's intercom. "Welcome to Barcelona."


End file.
